20 Days
by mylibrarymystories
Summary: There are 20 days left for John. 20 days for Sherlock to be with his best friend. What will they do with those last twenty days?
1. Chapter 1

John and I have worked together for many, many days.

This is about my last 20 days with him.

His sweet golden hair blew gently in the soft breeze, as he sat with his head in his hands on the park bench. I could hear his broken sobs through his fingers, and I just wanted him to stop being so sad, to sit up, to chit chat about a new girlfriend, to do that silly fidgety thing, to argue about trivial nonsense like location of the sun, to brag about how many people visited his website, to complain about the groceries, to just be…. John.

His fingers slipped through his hair, ruffling it, as I held back tears, pulling the strands of composure around me, as he turned to look at me. I stood up slowly, flipping up my collars, just the way he hates it, and hailed a cab.

"Sherlock. We have to talk about this."

I feel the tears rising in my throat, and I swallow. "No we don't. Not right now. We have plenty of time."

"No we don't Sherlock! This isn't going to go away if we ignore it. It will get worse and worse until one day, I will be gone all together. We can't wait until the last minute Sherlock. I've only got so much time."

I closed my eyes, and slipped into the cab.

This can't be happening.

Not to him.

Not to my friend.

My best friend.

My only friend.

We came back to the house to find Lestrade at the door. I can see the relief in John's face. We both need a distraction right now. John leads the way up the stairs. I watch him carefully, noticing all the small signs that he is in pain. I wince as I see him trip slightly on the last stair. He sits in his usual spot, but this time, his laptop is closed. Usually he does his silly blog about now. But at the moment, he just seems to be staring at the wall.

"There's been a murder."

Right. Lestrade is here. I look him over, and I can tell he knows something is off. He's choosing to ignore it though, and continues to tell us about how some bloke was found in the closet of a flat that hadn't been opened in three months with a bullet through his back. Of course, he gave us more information, but I just couldn't seem to stop noticing every movement John made, carefully watching to see if it was all a lie, so I could tell myself it was all a practical joke, or just some silly cold, or poison that I could get him the antidote for…

"Sherlock!" I looked over, and judging from the crease of concern wobbling over Lestrade's eyebrow, this had not been the first time he had said my name. "Will you take the case or what?"

I looked over at John, then back at Lestrade. John is more important than some stupid case. That man is already dead anyway. "Actually, I think that I better-"

"We'll take it." I looked over at John in amazement.

"Ok. You start on Monday." As Lestrade turned to leave the apartment, John shoved himself out of his chair.

"No. We start now."


	2. Chapter 2

"Lestrade, can you excuse me and my colleague for a moment?" He still stood gaping in the doorway. He turned and stepped out of the apartment, turning back to look at John for a second more, then shut the door behind him. "John, are you sure you are up to this with the '20 days to live' and all…"

"Sherlock, I've got 20 days to live. I don't want to spend my days moping around the house waiting to die. I'm going to spend every minute that I possibly can doing what I love to do. So we will chase down this murderer, and avenge the death of the poor bloke in the closet, then I will blog about it, and we will go on another case, and another case, until I drop dead. Fair?"

It's pretty hard to surprise me. I'm Sherlock Holmes. And it is even harder to leave me speechless. But in this moment, I could not think of one word to say to John, my best and only friend, who I only have 20 days to day everything I will ever get to say to him.

"Good. Lets go."

He walked out the door, standing straight and tall, just like the soldier he is, but I could see that each step was not as painless as they had been less than a week ago. Sometimes I wish I couldn't read people so well. Then again… I followed him out the door, and Lestrade gave me a questioning look. I flipped up the collars on my coat, and slid into the police car next to John. The police car pulled away from the sidewalk, and we flashed through the streets of London, in a heavy silence.


	3. Chapter 3

As we walked into the apartment building, I braced myself for a horrible smell, and found… that there was no smell at all. Odd… I searched around the apartment, gathering data, and then opened the closet and thud! Out fell one of the police officers. Lestrade gaped in horror. I turned back the body. "I'm assuming this is not the man that was first murdered here."

"Oh my god… I sent him here to make sure the place was empty…"

John sat down beside the body, felling for a pulse, as he always does (a bad habit if you ask me), and looked up at Lestrade sadly. "I'm sorry." A quick scan of the body showed some struggle, but not as much as it could have been (ripped sleeve as if struggling while being stuffed in the closet, messed up hair which by the looks of the amount of gel in it is not a simple task, and bruises along the wrist that look like finger marks) which signifies that he may have been sedated or drugged, but most likely he was shot first. There are no stains on the floor, but the carpet shows that something was slid off it, possibly a drop cloth of some sort to catch the blood. The other body that was supposedly here was also gone, which means the murderer stole the body, which is very weird…

After explaining all this to John and Lestrade, and getting a few "Brilliants" from John and an eye roll from Lestrade (he really should show more appreciation, it's more than Anderson and his team could ever get), John and I decided to walk to a coffee shop near by to discuss while Lestrade went to take care of some paperwork for the dead police officer.

We round the corner to the shop, when I give John a quick look. He looked paler than usual. And he was sweating, and his jaw was clenched and his fists were clenched and his lips were tightened and his eyes were squeezed shut and his knees started to buckle and my heart raced faster as I threw my arm around his waist shouting for someone to call an ambulance god help him please and he wasn't responding to me when I shouted his name he needs to be ok I need him to be ok…

"John?"


	4. Chapter 4

18 Days

God, I was tired, been in the hospital to make sure that John doesn't…. doesn't…. well, I've been up all night, and he'll be ok. But god, the moment he woke up… He was pretty embarrassed that he passed out on the street. He was asleep for a whole day.

"Sherlock. Sherlock… Sherlock!"

"Hm? John, are you ok?" I looked up from the couch, moving my hands up from under my chin to my nose, pressing my palms together.

"I'm fine Sherlock. I just wanted to know if you would come finish the case with me." He pushed himself up from the couch with the flag on it, his normal spot, and walked over to the doorway, leaning against it. He was trying so hard to remain strong. In truth, I was bored out of my mind, sitting around the apartment all day, but every minute that John was comfortable and safe was a good minute in my book.

"That case is dull." Wrong. It's actually highly intriguing. I really want to study the back of the closet see if there is a hidden door, maybe some system of poison, a gun rig… "I think I'm gonna wait till the next case comes round."

John rolled his eyes. "Look. I know you are lying. You did that thing where you drop all the unnecessary vowels, so you can shorten the lie." God, do I do that? I'll work on that.

"Fine. Let's go look at the apartment, then we will come straight home and find another case that's more interesting." I slid off the couch, stepped over the coffee table, grabbed my phone, (and put 911 on speed dial, just in case John… well…) and followed John out the door, to find a car already sitting there… with a gun aimed right at my head.


	5. Chapter 5

"Get in the car. Now." I stepped forward, but John grabbed my arm.

"Sherlock... Run, and I'll distract them." 

"John, you are dying in 18 days, not today. I'm getting in the car." 

"Well, so am I." He followed behind me stubbornly, and I groaned and flipped up my collar, and slid into the back seat, looking at the blacked out window longingly. If only we had stayed home, John would have been safe, and we would not have been in this situation. But I pushed that out of my mind as I tried to pay attention to what direction we were going… Middle of the city… parking garage…. Ok. I know where we are. I reached for my phone, texting Lestrade the address, just as the guy reached back and grabbed our phones, throwing them out the window, and then rolled over them with the car.

"No being tracked now."

I groaned, as they pushed us out of the car.

"You have made a horrible mistake. You should have stopped looking into the case after you found the police. But since you continued the case, we will find you a nice closet for a home." He grinned, and I looked around the room. I could hear a police car nearby. I just had to stall for a little while…

"Say goodbye…"

"Wait! Um, can you tell us how you hid the bodies?"

"What?"

"How did you hide them?"

"Not by talking to them before I killed them!" He pulled out the gun, pointed at my forehead, keeping his distance, far enough away that we couldn't attack, and pulled the trigger…


End file.
